II. all the places of the publick government, as well in the BOOK church as in the civil estate: and therefore all means are to be used, (and so it is the duty of the heads of the university,) both to cherish and avaunce all means that may tend to the encrease and conserve of godlines, good learning, vertue, and maners; and in like wise to remove in seasonable time all impediments that are averse to the same. For which cause it is found at this time very necessary, that some speedy remedy be provided for the restoring to the said university the antient modesty of the students, scholars, and all other that shall be accounted members of the same, as well in all exterior behaviour, as in knowledge and learning; which of late years hath greatly been decayed and diminished by the negligence, sufferance, and remisseness of the heads and governours of the private colleges, as may be conjectured; but especially, by suffering of sundry young men, being the children of gentlemen, and men of wealth, at their coming to the said university, contrary to the auncient and comely usage of the same, to use very costly and disguised maner of apparel, and other attyres unseemly for students in any kind of humane learning, but rather meet for riotous prodigalls, and light persons: thereby not only being more chargeable to their friends than is convenient, but by their ill example induceing others of less habilitie to chaunge and cast away their modesty and honest frugality, to the overcharging of their friends and namely, to the attempting of unleful means to maintain them in their said wastful disorders; and consequently, to neglect or intermit their former studies. So as if remedy be not speedily provided, the university, which hath been from the beginning a collection and society of a multitude of all sorts of ages, professing to learn godlines, modesty, vertue, and learning; and a necessary storehouse to the realm of the same, shall become rather a storehouse, or a staple of prodigal, wastful, riotous, unlearned, and insufficient persons, to serve, or rather to unserve, the necessity of the realm, both in the church and civil policie. Therefore it is ordered and decreed by the right honour II. BOOK able William lord Burghley, high chancellor of the said university, with the advice and consent of the vicechancellor of the same, and all the masters and heads of colleges, houses, and halls, that from the feast of Michaelmas next coming, no person shall have any lodging in common, or resiance in any college, house, or hall, or to be taught by any within the university, but that he shall within the compass of every college, hall, or house, and in the common schools, and in his going and returning to the same, wear such seemly apparel, both for the stuff and fashion, as shall become a student and professor of learning. And for more manifest expression of the meaning hereof, by way of prohibiting the monstrous misuse lately crept into the university, no student shall wear within the university any hoses of unseemly greatness or disguised fashion, nor yet any excessive ruffs 121 in their shirts; nor shall wear swords or rapiers, but when they are to ride onely. Nor shall any person coming to study, wear any apparel of velvet or silk, but such as by the laws of the realm, according to their birth, or as by certain orders published by proclamation in her majesties time, are allowed, according to their several degrees of birth and wealth. And generally, all the heads of houses shall cause all such as have any sustentation, stipend, or other maintenance within their houses, to conforme themselves; and to reform all their disorderly apparel, according to the local statutes of the house: or otherwise, if time in some points have caused alteration, yet to use such as shall be comely, and agreeable to their vocations. And that as much as may be, the diversity of fashions in every degree be avoided: to reduce the number, as near as may be, to one uniformity of comliness and modesty, according to their degrees. And for the execution of this decree, the vicechancellor and the heads of colleges shall confer together; and shall in writing, by common consent, prescribe some particular rules for the directing of all sorts, and for the prohibition from that time, of all unseemly innovation in all kind of apparel and attyre; with regard to such as be the sons of II. noblemen, or of other principal estates, or knights in the BOOK realm, which have no living in any colleges. That according to the degrees of their parents, they may be permitted to use the more cost in their apparel: so that the same be not excessive, nor in fashion unseemly for students and professors of learning. And if any shall upon reasonable warning attempt to break such orders as shall be prescribed, the same shall be expelled the house where he doth reside, and shall not be suffered to enter into any other publick house of learning, nor into the common schools. Neither yet shall any within the university presume to teach or instruct him, while he shall continue his offence in any part within the said university. Number XVIII. The vice-chancellor and heads of the university of Cambridge, to their high chancellor: complaining of the impeaching of their free suffrages in their election of fellows, by letters procured from the queen. Honoratissimo domino dno. de Burghleye, totius Angliæ summo thesaurario, et academiæ Cantabrigiensis cancellario dignissimo. me. FACILE facit academia quod semper facit (illustrissime MSS. academic. pen. Burleiensis) ut ad tuam semper humanitatem confidenter accedat; ut in omni sua petitione tuam protenus opem sedulo imploret; et in tuo quasi sinu omnes suas curas et cogitationes profuse effundat. In quo sane admirabilis quædam elucet humanitas tua: quem neque tua ipsius negotia, neque universi hujus imperii multiplex sane procuratio unquam impediit, quo minus importunitati libenter vacares, et petitioni nostræ amanter concederes. Hac spe freti venimus ad te hoc tempore, sicut ad parentes filii solent accedere. Querimur apud dignitatem tuam lædi a quibusdam academiam nostram, minui et infringi libertatem, affligi et perturbari libertatem. Addimus etiam, defervescere apud nos BOOK nonnullorum studia, dejici animos, languescere industriam, II. angi postremo omnes et singulos academicos; atque ægre quidem id ferre; cui tamen nisi per tuam solius authoritatem nullo certe modo mederi possunt. Quod nam vero est istud, inquies, malum, quod adeo vos conturbat? Quodnam tam grave vulnus quod tantopere vos affligit? Timide dicimus, honoratissime Mecænas; et tibi tamen dicendum est libere. Id enim et observantia in te nostra hactenus consuevit, et necessitas hoc tempore exigit, et tua benignitas jamdiu permisit. Dolemus, ornatissime Cecili, eripi nobis 122 libera in societatibus collegiorum nostrorum disponendis suffragia, id est, ut nos interpretamur, auferri virtutis et studiorum præmia. Cum enim regio diplomate id apud nos obtineatur, quod summæ in bonis literis assequendis diligentiæ, quod assiduo virtutis studio, morumque probitati solet concedi; cum princeps id mandet fieri, quod præclara ingenia, honesta officia, probi mores solent demereri; fit sane, ut adolescentes nostri pulsis paulatim obedientiæ repagulis, nec non excusso suavissimo nutricis omnium virtutum, humilitatis jugo, desertoque plane superioribus suis omni honesta ratione placendi studio, beneque merendi desiderio, non academicos quibuscum vivunt, implorare, morumque suavitate promereri studeant; sed aulicos, quibus ignoti sunt, omni modo ambire cupiant: nec jam eorum quos rei summa penes esse solet, suffragia æstiment; sed aulicorum literis plerumque se muniant: illeque tandem voti sui compotem se fore confidit, non qui in academia bene meritum, sed qui ex aula mandatum afferre possit. In quo sane magnum nobis negotium faciunt, ingentique cura onerant, valdeque discruciant, ne vel regiæ majestati immorigeri (quod nullo certe modo esse debemus) vel privilegiis nostris ab ipsamet majestate nobis concessis plane infidi, aut, si id minus durum sit, parum profecto providi inveniamur. Ista tu nos cura atque anxietate pro ingenti humanitate tua liberes, prudentissime Burghliensis. Obtestamur te, et per tuam in nos fidem, ac benevolentiam ; et per nostram quam tu maxime amas, salutem et dignitatem, aufer nobis istam mandatorum frequentiam, quibus non II. tam promoveri homines importunos, maximeque audaces, BOOK Tuæ semper dignitatis studiosissimi, [Number XVIII.] Articuli propositi pro parte et nomine illustrissimi ducis Andegavensis, fratris unici regis Gallorum, serenissimareginæ Angliæ; de et super matrimonio inter ipsius majestatem, et præfati ducis celsitudinem, 16 Junii, 1579. I. IMPRIMIS, quod in honorem et gloriam Dei, dictum matrimonium celebrabitur, peragetur, consummabitur, quam primum fieri potest, paribus atque eisdem ritibus et ceremoniis, quibus antiquitus et a primis regum temporibus ad hodiernum usque diem, regum ac princi Responsum ex parte serenis- I. II. DUO hæc priora capita, quæ ad religionem, et matrimonii celebrandi ritus attinent, relinquuntur tractanda et definienda inter sereniss. reginam et illustriss. tempore colloquii, &c. . |